Haboku privacy policy
Haboku shows one small advert at the foot of the screen, from Google AdMob, unless you buy Remove ads. Haboku has no analytics of its own. Google's advert service collects some information from your phone, and this page lists it. Without signing in, nothing personal reaches our server. If you sign in, we keep the minimum, and this page lists all of it. We sell nothing about you.
On your phone
Your progress, your settings and the puzzles you have solved are kept in the app's own storage on your phone. Uninstalling the app removes them from your phone. Copies on your own Google account, described in the next three sections, stay until you remove them there.
Shared puzzles are codes that the app makes on your phone. You share them through Android's own share sheet. They do not pass through our server.
Play Games saved games
Release 35 and later can keep a copy of your progress with Google Play Games. This happens only when you are signed in to Play Games. Google can sign you in when Haboku starts, or you can tap Keep progress with Play Games in Settings. The copy is a saved game on your own Google account. It never comes to our server.
The saved game holds the puzzles you have solved (in packs, lessons and puzzles of the day) with your solve times, the packs you have started, what you have unlocked, and how many times each tune has played. It does not hold your settings, the scores waiting to be sent, or your purchases.
Google also gets a short description of the save, such as “12 puzzles solved”, your played time and a cover picture. The cover picture is one fixed Haboku picture. It is never a picture of your screen.
Play Games itself collects your gamer name and avatar, and its own usage and diagnostic information. What Google Play Games collects and Google's privacy policy say what Google does with it.
If you do not want this, do not sign in to Play Games. Your progress then stays on your phone only. To delete the saved game, use your Play Games profile or your Google account. Delete my account in Haboku does not reach it.
Play Games achievements
Release 42 and later: while you are signed in to Play Games, Haboku tells Google which achievements you have earned and how far you are towards the others. They are worked out from the puzzles you have solved and kept on your Play Games profile. None of this comes to our server. They stay on your Play Games profile until you remove them there.
Android Auto Backup
If backup is on for your phone, Android copies your Haboku progress to your own Google account. It does not copy the puzzle library. If you install Haboku again, Android brings your progress back. We never see the backup.
To stop it, switch off backup in your phone's Settings: search Settings for “Backup”. To delete the backup, use Google's backup settings.
Update notices
Release 54 and later: when Haboku starts, and when you come back to it, it asks Google Play whether a newer version is waiting. If one is, Haboku shows a card on its home screen. Update opens Haboku's page on Google Play.
To answer, Google Play's update service on your phone sends Google some information about your phone, the version of Haboku you have, and the parts of Haboku that are installed. Google uses it only to find out whether an update is available and how large it is. It does not come to us. Google encrypts it, shares it with nobody else and deletes it after a fixed period. Google's privacy policy applies.
The puzzle of the day
The app fetches the puzzle of the day from our server. Release 34 and later call it api.titoo.uk. Earlier releases call it haboku.tiggertoo.uk. Both names reach the same server, and the same rules apply to both. That request carries no account and no identifier. Like every request to this site, it reaches the server through Cloudflare, and the web server records it: the IP address it came from, the country Cloudflare reports for that address, the identifying headers sent with it and the address requested. We use this to keep the service secure and to count use. The logs are deleted after 14 days.
Adverts
Haboku shows a banner advert at the foot of the menus and the play screens. It never covers the puzzle, and lessons have none. The adverts come from Google AdMob, through Google's Mobile Ads SDK in the app. They are rated G, suitable for all ages, and they are never video.
To show adverts, count them and stop fraud, Google's SDK collects the following from your phone and sends it to Google. It does not come to us.
| What Google collects | Why |
|---|---|
| Your IP address, from which Google can estimate your general location | Advertising, measuring adverts, and preventing fraud |
| How you interact with the advert and the app, such as launches and taps | Advertising, measuring adverts, and preventing fraud |
| How the app and the SDK perform, such as launch time and hangs | Advertising, measuring adverts, and preventing fraud |
| Your phone's advertising ID and app set ID | Advertising, measuring adverts, and preventing fraud |
It is encrypted while it travels. How Google uses information from apps that use its services and Google's privacy policy say what Google does with it.
You can reset or delete your advertising ID in your phone's Settings: search Settings for "Ads".
Test versions of Haboku on Google Play's testing tracks show Google's sample test adverts. The SDK collects the same information in them.
Your choice about personalised adverts
In the UK, the European Economic Area and Switzerland, Haboku asks you once, before it shows its first advert, whether Google and its advertising partners can use your data to choose adverts for you. The question is Google's own form. You can choose Consent or Do not consent, or use Manage options to choose purpose by purpose.
Haboku works the same whatever you choose. If you do not consent, you still see an advert, but it is not chosen from data about you. Your answer is stored on your phone, and Google's SDK sends it to Google with each advert request.
To change your answer, open Haboku, go to Settings and tap Privacy choices. This opens Google's form again.
If you own Remove ads, Haboku asks Google for no adverts, so it does not ask this question.
In test versions, the question is Google's sample form, and every tester sees it, wherever they are.
If you sign in with Google
Signing in is optional. It lets the server verify your scores. This is everything our server keeps about a signed-in player. We keep nothing else.
| What we keep | Why | How long |
|---|---|---|
| Google's identifier for your account: a fixed number that Google gives us. It is not your email address. | To know it is you when you sign in again. | Until you delete your account. |
| A display name: the name on your Google profile or, if it has none, the part of your email address before the @. | To show next to your scores. | Until you delete your account. |
| Your sign-in session: a SHA-256 hash of its token (never the token itself), when it was made, when you last used it and when it expires. | To keep you signed in. | It stops working 90 days after you last use it, and is deleted within a day after that. It is also deleted when you sign out or delete your account. |
| If you buy Remove ads while signed in: that your account owns it. This is Google Play's order number, a SHA-256 hash of Google Play's purchase token (never the token itself), whether it was a test purchase, and when Google refunded it, if it did. | So that the wallpapers page can show you the wallpapers. See The Remove ads purchase. | Until you delete your account. |
| For each puzzle you solve while signed in (tutorial lessons are never sent): which puzzle, where it came from in the app (free play, a pack, the puzzle of the day or a shared code), the version number of Haboku you used, the time you took, the hints you used, when you solved it, and our server's signature over that record. | To verify and show your scores. We also compare the times that all players take with the steps that each puzzle needs, so that the difficulty levels match how hard the puzzles are for people. | Until you delete your account. |
The puzzle itself (its grid) is also kept, with our grader's count of the steps it needs, so that other players' solutions of it can be checked. Nothing in it links it to you.
The server's own log notes a random internal account number when you sign in, when it receives a score (with the puzzle, its grade and size, your time and hints, and whether it was your first solve of that puzzle), when it gives you the wallpapers' download links, and when you delete your account. It is not your name or your Google identifier. The log is deleted after 14 days.
For signing in, Google is only the sign-in provider. Google's privacy policy applies to your Google account.
The Remove ads purchase
Remove ads is a one-off purchase made through Google Play. After you buy it, Haboku shows no adverts and stops asking Google for them. Google Play takes the payment, and we never see your card or payment details. Google's privacy policy applies to the payment.
To know that you have bought it, the app reads Google Play's own record of your purchases, on your phone. If you are not signed in, the app sends nothing about the purchase to our server.
If you buy Remove ads while you are signed in, the app sends Google Play's receipt for it to our server, when you buy it and each time you start Haboku while signed in. The app also gives Google Play our internal number for your account with the purchase, so that Google's notices about the purchase reach the right account. Our server checks the receipt with Google Play and records that your account owns Remove ads. We keep that record so that the wallpapers page can show you the wallpapers. It is deleted when you delete your account. If Google refunds the purchase, we mark the record as refunded.
Once you own Remove ads, Settings links to the wallpapers page on this site. It opens in your browser, and that visit is recorded like any request to this site, as the puzzle of the day section says. To get the wallpapers, you sign in on that page with Google. The page sends Google's sign-in to our server, which checks it, finds your account and checks the record. If you own Remove ads, it answers with download links that work for ten minutes. The page loads Google's sign-in script from Google, and Google's privacy policy applies to it.
Where it is kept
What our server keeps is on our own server in the UK, on our own hardware. No third-party cloud holds it. What Google's advert service collects is held by Google. A Play Games saved game and Android's backup are held by Google, on your own Google account.
Deleting your data
- In the app: open Account and tap Delete my account, then tap it again to confirm. The server deletes your account, every session and every score at once.
- Signing out deletes that session from the server.
- Uninstalling removes everything on your phone. Copies on your own Google account (a Play Games saved game and Android's backup) stay until you remove them there: see Play Games saved games and Android Auto Backup.
- Without the app: see Delete your Haboku account.
Children
Haboku is for a general audience. We do not knowingly collect anything from children beyond what this page describes.
Questions
Haboku is made by TiToo Games, in the UK. For privacy questions, see Support. If this policy changes, this page changes with it, and its date in the site map changes too.